


a broken down dance

by villavona



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: M/M, Spoilers, i just love my children and im sad about the force awakens, this can also be read as platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:25:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5767744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/villavona/pseuds/villavona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Han turns to dust and blows away in front of him, and there’s nothing and it’s just Luke alone, grasping for a life that slides through his fingers. </p><p>or Luke mostly doesn't deal with Han's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a broken down dance

**Author's Note:**

> got hella sad about han and how luke never got to say goodbye to him and how they never saw each other again and this happened. title from angel from montgomery, shoutout to bonnie rait. 
> 
> unbeta'd

He feels it.

 

He’s closed his eyes, is sitting with his back against the rock, the long grass brushing his legs, and then he’s not.

 

He’s on a bridge, a narrow strip of nothing over more nothing, and Han is there. Han with desperation in his eyes, Han grey-haired, his face lined with years and sadness.

 

Luke feels Han’s pain like a kick in the gut, senses his desperate longing to make things right, the deep, tearing love for the boy in front of him.

 

 _Leia’s eyes,_ Han thinks, and Luke hears it in Han’s voice like a shout that’s a whisper from too far away to be sure what he’s hearing, _Leia’s eyes_ , the love for Leia and for Ben and the whispers of _I’m sorry Leia, I wasn’t good enough, I’m sorry Leia,_ and like a last breath of ghostly air, _I’m sorry Luke_.

 

Han reaches out, cups his son’s face, and the grief and the love wrenches at Luke’s insides, and the lightsaber twists in Han’s torso, searing burning Sith fire tearing apart Han’s tendon and muscle and sinew, his heart slowing, and Luke can see it as clearly as if he’s there himself.

 

The son, his weapon buried in his father, the hatred he displays simmering across the surface of his face, the embers of love kindling, hidden, inside him as he watches his father die. The father, reaching out to let his fingers brush across his son’s cheek, the boy he watched grow up and grow evil and could do nothing for, love and grief and guilt warring and tearing apart his body, his soul.

 

A gust of wind across Luke’s senses, Han tumbling into the yawning void of nothing, falling down down down until he vanishes. _Like Palpatine_ , some part of Luke’s mind whispers, and he screams out loud, watching with some inner part of himself as Han turns to dust and blows away in front of him, and there’s nothing and it’s just Luke alone, grasping for a life that slides through his fingers.

 

He’s on his island again, staggering like a blind man in the fresh green field. Somewhere behind him, a bird chirps.

 

 _HAN_ screams somebody in Luke’s head, vibrating around the walls of his mind, _HAN_ , anguish pouring through every word, a love lost long before he died, a rift that the all the love in the world only deepened, _HAN! NO!_

 

It’s Leia, he knows, remembers Leia running into Han’s arms on Endor so many years ago, the way he picked her up and spun her around, both of them laughing carefree in the middle of the war, their love spilling bright all around them like it wasn’t something precious.

 

Han, he thinks, and he knows he’s wailing aloud but there’s no one else here to hear him, alone alone alone on this deserted island on this deserted planet, Han’s name thrumming through his blood like a siren song.

 

“HAN!” he screams as loudly as he can, just for the pain of his throat rasping after he doesn’t know how long of not using it, just to hear the bird behind him screech in shock and take off, panicked wingbeats stirring the air around his head. “NO!” He’s shouting, senselessly, and the wind has picked up around him, tearing Han’s name away from his lips the minute it’s out so he can hear the faint echo of his own voice on the air, wrecked and despairing.

 

Han is dead, he thinks, and something in his head cracks open and the memories he’s locked up for so long spill out, bright with youth and joy. Han whooping as he blew up tie fighters, Han dragging him into a warmly oozing tuantuan on Hoth, Han kissing Leia on their wedding day, Han hugging Luke to his chest on Endor after he returned with the ashes of Vader’s body warm on his hands.

 

Luke puts his hand out, finding a boulder to steady himself against, watching it all flash by on front of his eyes, Han laughing as he beat both of them at sabacc, Han swearing at the Falcon, Han blinded and frightened in the stale darkness of Jabba’s palace. His head is echoing with Han’s voice, _you’re gonna die here you know_ warring with _come on kid, we’re not out of this yet. Hey, it’s me_ and _you’ve never heard of the Millennium Falcon?_ and _Luke? Is that you?_ and _come on, kid, let’s blow this thing and go home_ like it was a place they shared. Han laughing at him after they drank together the first time and Luke almost threw up, Han fighting with Leia and then kissing Luke the way she had in a snow-packed base, Leia’s wide eyes and Han’s deep laugh, Han clapping a hand over his mouth in the smuggler’s bay of the Falcon and whispering _it’s okay, kid_ in his ear, lips brushing against it and sending shivers through Luke’s body.

 

Leia’s crying somewhere, he knows, probably not outwardly because she’s too composed and too important, but he can hear her shocked loss in his mind and knows he’s not imagining it.

 

 _You came back for me_ , Han had told him on Tattooine, still blind and lost in the stinking dark of the cell next to Luke’s, some kind of hopeless wonder in his voice, and Luke had known somehow that Han didn’t believe he was worth coming back for.

 

 _Of course I did,_ he’d said, like it was obvious, _you came back for me on Hoth_ , remembering Han telling him not to die in a low, worried tone in the snow as the freezing night pressed in around them, whispering soft worried love he’d never been able to fully remember, and Han had snorted like that was funny.

 

 _Yeah, but that was you_ , he’d said, and Luke had been puzzled trying to figure out what he’d meant as Jabba’s pigs dragged them both away to feed them to the thing in the pit.

 

He gets it now, he thinks, Han’s last thoughts in his head repeating _I wasn’t good enough_.

 

 _You were good enough, Han_ , he thinks out loud now, trying to reach out for Han the way he’s always been able to, trying to locate any scrap of his best friend’s consciousness out there, _you were great, for me and for Leia, Han, I’m so sorry I’m so sorry I love you I love you I love you_.

 

He can imagine Han’s response to that, some kind of snarky _Jesus, kid, relax, I’m fine_ the way he had after Luke had gotten out of bed on Hoth, still more panicky than not, and made him strip down so he could look for frostbite, frantically scanning all of Han’s lean tanned muscle until Han had put a hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eyes and said it was okay.

 

Han is dead, he thinks again, trying to make it clarify in his mind, slip it into place alongside all the other things he knows, the speed of an X-wing plane and the different systems of the galaxy and the name of Han Solo’s ship. It doesn’t fit.

 

He’s walking now, faster and faster, his feet carrying him like they know where to go, and he remembers Han’s faint accent curling around his syllables when he said _Corellia_ , a home he’d never really had.

 

I’m sorry, Han.

 

He stops, somehow, looks around and realizes he’s climbed to the top of the island, wind making his Jedi robe snap, the robe Han tried on in their disorganized apartment while Leia laughed hysterically in the background at Luke’s indignation.

 

There’s nothing around him for miles but more islands, dots of green and gray as far as he can see, and he remembers when Han and Leia took him to the ocean and he sat down and cried because he’d never seen so much water in his life, Han’s half-amused voice gentle in his ear and Leia’s small hand on his back, the three of them together at the end of the world.

 

He shuts his eyes and breathes in the cold clear air (clear like the stream on Endor he found Han and Leia in after the battle, both half dressed and washing off their wounds and laughing and crying and flirting and Han didn’t even bat an eyelash before letting Luke join them, easy and sure and grinning through a split lip like he didn’t care what it cost him), lets his lungs fill up in his chest. He can still feel the burning of Han’s pain in his chest, the place where the lightsaber must have broken through his weary body.

 

“What do I do now?” he says aloud to the cold air and the empty wind, and Ben—no, Kylo Ren is out there somewhere trying to hunt him down, and Leia’s alone now and Han is dead. “What do I do?”

 

I’m sorry, Han, and Leia, and Ben. I failed you all.

 

I never even got to see Han again, he thinks, and that’s almost too much for him, thinking about Han’s bright hazel eyes and crooked smile and stupidly thick fluffy hair.

 

He sits down, and waits for something to happen, for Yoda or Obi-Wan or Anakin to come and tell him what to do (what to do now that Han is dead and his nephew is trying to murder him and he’s just lost everything). Nothing happens.

 

What does happen is the earsplitting screech of a plane coming through his atmosphere, and he stares up at the sky, waiting for it to appear, too exhausted to find it with the Force. He’s not surprised, somehow, when the Millennium Falcon comes soaring across the blue sky. It makes sense, and he feels it with a dull shot of pain in his stomach.

 

Whoever is here, he knows, is here for him, and he goes to get his things numbly, unfeeling hands tying the few things he owns into a small bundle. He leaves it in the cave and walks out, letting the wind ruffle through his hair. He doesn’t know what he looks like, hasn’t seen himself in years. Han looked older, the same face but more lined, hair gray instead of brown, but the same eyes, the same halfway smile.

 

Maybe that wasn’t even real, he thinks, maybe I made his face up in my head. He knows it’s not true, and pats at the beard on his face, picturing himself aged ten years.

 

Oh, Han, he thinks, we never got to grow old together. _Your fault_ , says the traitor voice in his head, _you ran away, you abandoned him and Leia_ , and he shakes his head, it doesn’t matter anymore.

 

There’s a quiet tread behind him that he feels more than hears, another person entering his little prison, and he turns around, letting his hood fall away. He can sense her heart jackhammering against her ribs, deep nervous breaths racking through her, but somewhere in there, a kind of quiet steady courage.

 

She’s holding something out to him, her hand quivering just barely.

 

His lightsaber. The lightsaber he trained with (on the Falcon with Obi-Wan and Han, Han making snide comments about the Force and blasters every time he got shot by that damn floating droid), the lightsaber he lost on Bespin a hundred years ago after he lost Han and Leia the first time.

 

And she’s offering it to him.

 

What can he do? Turn away from her, spend another decade (a century) waiting on this island to die?

 

No.

 

He wraps his fingers around the handle, feels a quiet surety in his fingertips, and the girl lets her hand drop, watching him with wide eyes.

 

He lets the lightsaber grow to its full length, remembering Han unsheathing this very weapon on Hoth while he watched with unaware eyes, slicing through a tuantuan to keep him alive. He hands it back to the girl, and she puts it in her waistband, her eyes not leaving him.

 

“You are Luke Skywalker,” says the girl, this brave young girl who’s flown here in Han’s ship, who the Force surrounds and flows through like an explosion of flowers, her voice full of wonder, and then, “You have to come home.”

 

He meets her eyes, which are a deep green-brown (like Han’s, and not), like a deer’s eyes, and he says, “Okay.”

 

He follows her down the winding stone trail he hasn’t traveled in a year. She doesn’t try to talk to him. He doesn’t try to talk to her.

 

The Falcon is sitting in the clearing below, looking even shittier than he remembers it, and Chewie and Artoo are there, and he forgets to cry over Han in his joy at seeing them.

 

Chewie wraps him up in a hug almost right away, and Artoo won’t stop whistling until they’re all four on the ship, and this girl and Chewie are flying them away.

 

“I’m making the jump to lightspeed,” the girl calls back, and damned if he can’t hear Han saying the same thing in the same tone a hundred times, _buckle up, kid, I have to make the calculations, this is gonna be a real short trip_.

 

He shuts his eyes, ignoring the things that jump out at him from around the cabin. An empty bottle of Corellian vodka. A deck of cards, stacked lovingly in the back corner of a shelf. The map of the galaxy pinned to one wall, stained and battered and somehow still there after so many years.

 

Clearly, there have been other people here, burn marks and scratches and cigarettes lining the floor, a forgotten jacket in one corner, but Luke spies a black vest beyond it and has to sit down. Artoo whistles at him worriedly.

 

Luke watches the stars stretch out past the window, and then all of a sudden the Falcon is slowing down with that still-familiar rattling squeal, and they’re approaching a good-looking green planet. He stands up, and goes to the room that used to be Han’s.

 

It’s completely different, Han’s squashy bed missing, all the things he always had scattered around gone. Luke’s almost glad. It still feels too familiar, and he doesn’t think he could handle any more of Han around right now. It doesn’t matter that the furniture’s gone, because there’s the bloodstain from when Leia got shot on a Rebel mission and he and Han had to carry her back over three miles, both frantic with worry, and there’s the long scratch from when the three of them were drunk and wrestling with Han’s knife and broke it on the metal walls. It’s still too much.

 

“We’re here,” the girl calls, right on cue, and Luke startles out of his reverie.

 

Walking down the ramp is something else, into a teeming Rebel base filled with X-wings and pilots in orange uniforms like the one Han told him his ass looked good in thirty years ago. They’ve clearly tried to not make it a big deal, the last Jedi returning after so many years away, but there’s tension in the shoulders of every pilot who walks by them, and Luke can hear his name bouncing off the walls of the base, _Skywalker Skywalker Jedi Luke Skywalker_.

 

When he first landed in a city after the Death Star blew above Endor and the Empire fell for good, a hundred people ran up to him all at once, and shouted all over each other, the Jedi are returned, the war is over, I love you Luke Skywalker. It was Han who hauled him bodily away into a corner, and pressed their foreheads together so Luke couldn’t look away and said _kid, you don’t have to talk to all of them, you can go past them and they won’t hurt you, don’t let it go to your head, kid_. He’d walked through the teeming joyous crowd with Leia at his front like Moses, sweeping the masses of people apart, and Han and Chewie at his back, and no one touched him.

 

Now, there’s no crowd, just a tense mixture of resentment and joy and fear and uneasy happiness, and Luke looks around for a familiar face the way he had in the Mos Eisley cantina, and found Han in a corner, looking reassuringly human.

 

He looks up, and Leia’s standing there, her hands folded in front of her. She looks old, is his first thought, old and wearied with the war she’s already fought once before. She’s still beautiful, her graceful power untouched by the years, gray hair wound up in one of those Alderaan braids she always wore.

 

“Leia,” he chokes out, overcome with the shock of seeing his sister for the first time in more than ten years. “Leia, I—” He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, only that he wants to tell her everything.

 

“Luke,” she murmurs, and her voice is deeper and softer, and she wraps her arms around his waist with the same surprising strength he remembers.

 

He rests his chin against her head, and closes his eyes, letting the tears slip down his cheeks. Leia’s shaking against him, and he pulls away to look her in the eyes.

 

“Han,” he says, and she squeezes her eyes shut, something breaking in her face.

 

“No,” she whispers, “Luke, I lost them both—” and she’s sinking to the ground, Luke following with his arms around his sister, both of them old and weary and heavy with loss and love and grief.

 

He doesn’t know how long they stay there, only that when he opens his eyes the stars are out there, less than on his island but too many for his shadowed eyes. Leia looks at him, and he leans his head on hers without a word, and it’s the two of them together at the end of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm so sorry lmao i'm emotional. rip my poor space father i love you


End file.
